The ship blew apart, the last one aboard, the human. One last message as it rammed into the enemy flagship, causing the enemy forces to be completely crippled. "One Life for the saving of millions, I'll gladly pay it!" But... what happened to the human? No body was found. -- Anon Guest
This was the battle that stopped the Vorax from using their Dreadnaughts. The Humans - in their near-eternal battle with their traditional enemy, other Humans - had come up with dirtier and nastier means of fighting than them. Including the Kamikaze Manoevre - ramming a dying vessel into something very fragile on the Dreadnaught and making everything blow up as a result.
The Dreadnaught, its hive of fighter vessels that happened to be nearby, anyone else luckless enough to be in the area, and of course the impacting vessel and the Human who was inevitably piloting it.
They always sent a last transmission, after they got the crew out with the Last Lie[1]. Some were emotional farewells. Some were irreverent variations on, "Hey, watch this." One that stood out was, "One life to saving of millions, I'll gladly pay it."
Given the nature of the manoevre, nobody expected to find their body.
There was a service, and a wake, just in case they came back somehow. Everyone knew that Humans could survive unlikely things.
They mourned, they moved on, and an uneasy truce evolved from the scattering of wreckage at the border. Deathworlders who recognised the futility of attack, glaring at each other from opposite sides of No-Beings Land.
As for Human Sa'd, she had expected to die. It was normal to do that sort of thing when ramming a dying ship into a Vorax Dreadnaught. Nobody ever came back from that.
So she was very surprised to find herself awake and in an Intensive Care Drawer. It was not the sort of tech she was used to. It was bare bones. Only that which was necessary. None of the artistic flourishes.
This was not the ICU drawer of an ally.
So the first thing she said to the tentacled nightmare of a doctor was, "Am I a prisoner of war?"
Their translator units were not very reliable and the answer was, "Us not eating you," which didn't answer questions in the way that Sa'd wanted.
It's hard to be confident about where you wake up when they tell you things like that.
The Vorax had seen Humanity's Hungry Caterpillar, reverse-engineered it, and used it as tech to save as many warriors as possible. Like most Vorax things, it was bare bones and didn't discriminate regarding passengers. When it threw living beings towards 'help', it only classified the nearest Thranityr base as helpful.
Sa'd learned a lot in that base. And eventually returned to the Alliance in a ship without weapons that she had made herself. The Alliance had data, at last, about how the Thranityr lived.
Which meant that Humans, being Humans, could work on potential solutions.
It did take them a lot of time to work things out from there.
[1] "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up," or "Go on ahead. I'll be fine."
[Photo by Harrison Broadbent on Unsplash]
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